The icing on the cake for protoss late game armies.
After the mothership was nerfed to oblivion in beta, late game air for protoss was looking a bit shameful. Carriers became overshadowed by an overlapping role with the void rays and the mothership turned into a novelty unit. I miss the powerful role that an arbiter once played in late game protoss armies in broodwar. Once arbiter tech was reached, a terran player had to respect the arbiters presence by adding turrets and obtaining science vessels for EMP and detection. Basically a mothership doesn't exceed in anything that the arbiter ever did, despite being more expensive and costing twice the supply. It also would be pretty nice to use the fleet beacon for something other than getting void ray speed for once.
Basically, a joke.
A mothership costs 400 minerals, 400 gas, requires 8 supply, and has a jaw dropping 160 second build time. It is also considerably slow and never seems to be able to keep up with a protoss army. Even though stat and cost tweaking may help bring the MS to where it belongs, I believe more creative solutions should be implemented, to prevent MS from being a more than just a glorified arbiter.
First off, only being able to build only one of any single unit in the starcraft universe just does not sit well with starcraft tradition. IMO it's a stupid rule; just from the cost alone I can't picture a toss player ever building more than 2 motheships at one time, possibly 3 at MAX (albeit extremely rarely). 8 psi cost is also extremely ridiculous and I think lowering it to 7 would be necessary to leave room for a decent sized main force.
Instead of lowering the resource cost I believe the actual utility of the unit should be buffed in order to justify it's cost/build time. I'd like to see a shield regeneration field similar to the cloaking radius in size. It would behave similar to how the wraith and ghosts cloaking abilities worked in SC1 Broodwar. Basically when you click the ability it slowly begins to start depleting the MS's energy as it begins replenishing the surrounding units' shields. You could click the ability again to disable it when you didn't need it and you wanted to save energy instead. Then, as for putting a cap on the ability, once the mothership reached 25 energy, the cloaking field would stop working and eventually when all the energy was drained, the regeneration field would stop working as well. So basically you could use this ability all the way to 0 energy but the cloaking field would stop working after 25 so you would have to monitor it's energy carefully to make sure it's worth sacrificing the cloaking field beyond that point. Just pretend that the MS's power source could only supply one or the other once you reached 25 energy, and the shield regeneration overrides the cloaking.
Finally I'd like to see an upgrade at the fleet beacon which would give the mother ship +25 starting energy (possibly +50 ) as well as +50 to max energy. The reason for this is the MS is a very energy hungry unit, especially after the ability that I suggested above, and this would be a must get research before your 2nd MS spawned.
As for carriers, I'm not sure how to fix the problem of overlapping roles with void rays. If anyone has any suggestions on that, feel free to discuss. I know we shouldn't except Blizzard to implement huge changes at this point, but I believe small stat changes and tweaks are not enough to save the mothership from being a failure of a unit and a larger overhaul is needed to stop late game toss air from being lackluster.
PS. I believe toss is the most refined race of the 3 and is balanced overall as far as being too powerful/too underwhelming. This is not a suggestion for balance but a suggestion to stop a unit with so much potential from being obsolete and give late game toss air tech a real meaning instead of just mass void ray.
hmm, I think the problem is that it's expensive and limited, which makes it seem like it should be very powerful, but it sits in a problem area where a buff could make it too strong and if it's not strong enough it just doesnt get used because of the cost. It's a very delicate balance, especially for a unit that you can only have one of, and i'd say that it's still a bit early for blizz to really make any balance changes.
That said, I think lowering the cost and shortening the time to make it would make it worthwhile to get and use. Between vortex, the teleport thing and the mass invisibility I think it's a decently powerful unit especially for defending and I could see some uses for it as a nice attacking unit. My only real problem with the unit is its cost. Also your suggestion for upgrading it so that it starts with extra energy is a good one, it would make the mothership worthwhile to get after your first one dies.
On August 25 2010 09:43 hydezyne wrote: The Mothership was an interesting design decision. I'm curious how it will evolve, or devolve, as time and patches go by.
I got smashed by a Mothership in 4v4... it has its uses :x
So the mothership is basically a joke? You need to step up your game and improve you micro skills. In my opinion the mothership is the best defensive unit in the game. The ability to build more than one mothership would break the game so much that it's not even worth mentioning why.
As for your idea of "a shield regeneration field" it is interesting but I don't like the fact that cloaking field would stop when under x energy.
Also about VRs and Carriers. Would be nice if you could develop your point because I don't see how these two units fill the same role. Of course if you think that "air unit which can attack air or ground" is a role then there is an overlapping problem.
Sadly, you will usually lose before that can happen unless you're already at a huge advantage.
My suggestion is to lower the build time of the mothership, so that you can cash in on that investment faster, and increase its starting energy, so that it can warp in and DO SOMETHING right away, rather than just die to Vikings right away.
Build time and interceptors dying instantly is the only real problem with Carriers.
My suggestion for Carriers is to decrease the build time from 120 to 105 (+15 seconds over battlecruisers to account for crono-boost, just like Collosus taking 15 more seconds than Thor).
That will be the first step towards making them viable. Then there are a few other smaller options:
Comes fully loaded with all 8 interceptors, allowing them to get on the field and used a bit faster. Make it so that interceptors are no longer considered "light" so that 2 thors doesn't instagib all the interceptors (as Carriers SHOULD be a good counter to a mech heavy Terran).
Just small little tweaks, not huge buffs, to make it a unit that has its role.
I think the real problem with Carriers is that in PvT you can't go air. Vikings counter EVERY SINGLE AIR UNIT YOU HAVE for cost. So you build stalkers to try and kill some Vikings... so they build Marauders and do to your stalkers what their vikings are doing to your air units.
Making it so that phoenixes can go toe-to-toe with Vikings for cost, by changing Vikings back to 6(+8 armored) would mean that a Protoss could go air versus Terran, building phoenixes to counter Vikings, and not instantly lose.
Since Corrupters kinda suck and can get owned by Void Rays and Stalkers are viable in PvZ because Marauders dont exist, Carrier/mothership play is almost viable as-is. Just needs a few tweaks such as those I describe above.
maybe a little off topic from what you're trying to say in this thread, but i've seen replays of Azz and KiWiKaKi, two VERY good protoss players, utilize motherships against terran mech players extremely well, in fact it was a game winning move in each of the games, the one i remember specifically was on steppes of war, kiwikaki vs silver, (u can find it on root gaming) where kiwi used a vortex too engulf the entire seige tank/bio/ viking army, which had taken map control in the centre, and then placing his own zealots in the vortex with them, and once they all came out he psi stormed the army to death with the zealots smashing them simultaniously.... silver, and the other terrans who fell to this, all left the game instantaniously without even a gg
On August 25 2010 09:53 Champi wrote: maybe a little off topic from what you're trying to say in this thread, but i've seen replays of Azz and KiWiKaKi, two VERY good protoss players, utilize motherships against terran mech players extremely well, in fact it was a game winning move in each of the games, the one i remember specifically was on steppes of war, kiwikaki vs silver, (u can find it on root gaming) where kiwi used a vortex too engulf the entire seige tank/bio/ viking army, which had taken map control in the centre, and then placing his own zealots in the vortex with them, and once they all came out he psi stormed the army to death with the zealots smashing them simultaniously.... silver, and the other terrans who fell to this, all left the game instantaniously without even a gg
Omg I have never thought of sending my zealots into the Vortex. Zealots beat EVERYTHING in the game for cost once they get into Melee range. Wow. BRB using motherships.
1 - For what is suppose to be the pinnacle of the P arsenal, it dies too quickly. Too weak. 2 - As a support unit, it fails since it is too slow 3 - Vortex looks nice but isnt good. If you Vortex half the opponent's army to be able to take out the other half, all he has to do is run them in the vortex and after a couple of seconds, his rmy is whole again. You couldnt do that with the arbiter's stasis field. 4 - It was presented as the war changing unit...currently, its there for shits and giggles.
Possible solutions:
1 - Make it faster 2 - fix the vortex problem by maybe limiting the amount of units that can get in the vortex 3 - Shield recharge idea from the original post I like 4 - Give it some upgrades for the spells +25 energy or something or make it start default with 100 energy 5 - Make it more resistant. Maybe give it a special shield that goes against Ground or air (like the tempest) 6 - Bring back the ability to teleport it back to the Nexus
OR just bring back the arbiter and keep MS for Singleplayer
the blizz staff would rather remove the mothership than buff it. it does have its uses and some game winning tricks like nuke + vortex, banelings + vortex. i think the key to understanding it, is its a cool unit, but they didn't want to make it an auto-win when you get it. and it definitely used to be auto-win.
I highly suggest using the unit yourself before badmouthing it. Motherships got me into Diamond league; both Vortex and offensive/defensive Mass Recalls are immensely useful for managing large armies.
Possible solution: 1. reduce cost to 100/350 2. reduce psi to 4 3. change so is produced from stargate 4. change name from "Mothership" to "Arbiter" 5. replace the ability "Wormhole" with the ability "Stasis
The biggest deterrent to building the mothership for me has long been in speed. It's just incredibly frustrating to put so much time and money into making such an incredibly slow unit in such a fast paced game environment. Even when it is working well, it's not enjoyable to incorporate into your army.
I love the mothership, and it is NOT UP!!! Basically, I incorporate it in every late game that I am in the lead, and a few that I am not, and it helps a TON. If it occured to me, I would have collected replays, but unfortunately I can not. here is the gist: I play aggressively with Warp Drops, DT's, Expansion Denying, VR's and anything else I can think of. I continue to play aggressively while I hide a Fleet Beacon with a Warp Prism (oftentimes on an island). I make a Mothership, while massing an army. If he attacks, I fend it off with nifty home team advantages, and I begin floating it over to the opponents base. It gets 100 energy, and I glide it into the main. Mass Recall. I win. (no gg)
It works well in many cases, and as far as late game is concerned, it is my top favorite tactic. It has gotten me to 600 diamond (though that doesn't mean much, as I completely agree with Saracen's topic), and it is even better in 2v2.
Now concerning your topic. I'd like to begin by asking: Have you tried using the Mothership? It is an expensive unit, sure, but Mass Recall does absurds amounts of damage, and almost always wins the game, or even's it. You have been comparing it to the Arbiter, and quite frankly, it is BETTER then the arbiter in many aspects (despite being, you know, expensive). Mainly because of the health.
Pros: -700 total HP makes it a reasonable damage soak in your main army (micro it please), the arbiter almost never survived a battle, provided it was attacked. -Vortex is more potent than Stasis Field -Mass Recall allows you to recall your entire army. YOUR ENTIRE ARMY. which means one of two things, one, it works to an extent as blink on a large scale. 2, while in sc1 korean players would sacrifice several arbiters to plow them into a terran base, the mothership is an all in 1. It takes a large amount of AA to take it down, and it can safely float over several missle turrets before recalling. -can cloak buildings... yeah, it hasn't saved me much there, but it is a nice addition to cannon defenses.
Cons: -Expensive (not worth it until the very second you use your first spell.) -long build time (stalling until the Mothership arrives/has 100 energy is a key factor) -slow (actually helps, because it is never on the frontlines)
and that's about it. honestly, when I first saw the MS I went :o at it's power. since playing the game, and passionately ignoring forumers about it, I have found it to be the PERFECT turtle breaker, and absolutely brutal versus terran. If you are still telling yourself "why should I use this PoS?," ask yourself this: "why would I NOT want to drop my entire army into my opponent's base?" and "What would I pay to do it?" My answer to all three questions is this: I DO want to mass-drop kick my opponent, and I would pay way more than 400m 400g 8s and I'd wait more than 160 seconds to do it!
Only way they need to fix carriers is to refine interceptor AI. Make the interceptors actually go back to the carrier to heal rather than flying around aimlessly until it dies. They also need to re-implement carrier micro. It's pretty much impossible to micro carriers now.
I liked how blizzard aimed to make the mothership a ultimate anti harrasement unit, but they lost the idea somewhere on their way. IMO, remove the mass recall, make it slower, put an ability to teleport instantly to the nexus, and make it more worth it economically. with this unit on your field, anyone trying to harras near your nexus would be kinda screwed since they will not see anything, and get the risk of getting sucked in a wormhole. Getting a mothership agaisnt mutaling would be a direct BO counter I say make it slower cause it should not be an attack unit, only a very powerfull basedefense
I think that Blizzard need to: 1. reduce cost to 50/50 2. reduce build time to 15s 3. increase HP to 900 4. increase attack range to 15 and attack speed to 0.15
In my opinion nowadays there is a annoying trend that needs to die. People really need to stop suggesting random balance fixes. You are not a game developper and you don't have the numbers and information to consolidate your suggestions. Throwing random numbers backed by anecdotal evidence is definitely not enough to make your post useful.
What blizzard actually need is feedback. Then they will make fixes and tweak the numbers. Take geno's post. Even if it may not be 100% accurate in every situations, it is straightforward and honest. geno didn't feel the need to play the role of a game designer by suggesting baseless number tweaking. That is actually the kind of post which will help blizzard balance the game more than "reduce x, increase y, remove z".
On August 25 2010 10:31 AlBundy wrote: I think that Blizzard need to: 1. reduce cost to 50/50 2. reduce build time to 15s 3. increase HP to 900 4. increase attack range to 15 and attack speed to 0.15
In my opinion nowadays there is a annoying trend that needs to die. People really need to stop suggesting random balance fixes. You are not a game developper and you don't have the numbers and information to consolidate your suggestions. Throwing random numbers backed by anecdotal evidence is definitely not enough to make your post useful.
What blizzard actually need is feedback. Then they will make fixes and tweak the numbers. Take geno's post. Even if it may not be 100% accurate in every situations, it is straightforward and honest. geno didn't feel the need to play the role of a game designer by suggesting baseless number tweaking. That is actually the kind of post which will help blizzard balance the game more than "reduce x, increase y, remove z".
It's meant to mess with the enemy's positioning, not only screwing up their tank lines and stuff, but making their entire army vulnerable to splash and melee after the vortex is complete. Be sure to march your entire army into the vortex as soon as they march theirs into it (especially when you've got archons). It can also be used as a giant "PAUSE" button, like the forcefield, or it can let you destroy their buildings in peace without any interference.
I would absolutely LOVE it if you could build two motherships, bouncing back and forth between spots with mass recalls, but I can definitely see why you can't do that. They're already incredibly powerful and game changing as it is. The key is that you need a bit of an army to back it up. The mothership is a support unit, after all. But that's not to say that a mothership can't get you out of a huge deficit. It's done it for me numerous times. The only problem is staying alive until you actually get the mothership, which can be a bit tricky because of its long build time. But I don't think it needs any changes. Players just haven't discovered the optimal situations in which to use it.
the mothership is to slow. the price, the fact that is rather squishy and that it does pittyfull damage does not bother me, the abillitys are actualy realy good... it just moves so extremly slow.
On August 25 2010 10:31 AlBundy wrote: I think that Blizzard need to: 1. reduce cost to 50/50 2. reduce build time to 15s 3. increase HP to 900 4. increase attack range to 15 and attack speed to 0.15
In my opinion nowadays there is a annoying trend that needs to die. People really need to stop suggesting random balance fixes. You are not a game developper and you don't have the numbers and information to consolidate your suggestions. Throwing random numbers backed by anecdotal evidence is definitely not enough to make your post useful.
What blizzard actually need is feedback. Then they will make fixes and tweak the numbers. Take geno's post. Even if it may not be 100% accurate in every situations, it is straightforward and honest. geno didn't feel the need to play the role of a game designer by suggesting baseless number tweaking. That is actually the kind of post which will help blizzard balance the game more than "reduce x, increase y, remove z".
x2
everyone is a specialist
Just throwing out some ideas on the issue of toss air diversity. If you think there is no need for discussion than I respect that opinion. The last few posts definitely raised an issue about the mobility of your army when using the mothership and it being too slow. I have seen it used defensively to some extent and I guess I was kind of exegeratting that the unit is a "joke" (it's not completely a waste). What I was trying to say was, the idea of only being able to build one of a unit at a time automatically directs me to believe that it should be used for humiliation tactics similar to nuking someone in SC1.
@Kidcrash no misunderstanding, I love discussing the game and I love the fact that you suggested ideas like shield regeneration, the only thing that is annoying are "buff x, nerf y, because I feel like it" posts.
the idea of only being able to build one of a unit automatically directs me to believe that it should be used for humiliation tactics similar to nuking someone in SC1.
The main problem is that the games are still too "small", not just in number of bases and units, but the tech people can afford to go to. Solution: maps for progaming which stimulate larger macro games. At least it seems Blizzard backs up that direction, even though they'll keep the ladder as more average ground. The larger the games, the more usage of mothership there will be, especially when the field is wide, hard to move through, with many bases, and recall becomes invaluable to break good defenses.
I would love if mothership could cloak itself too, just for a limited time. Say, for 15 seconds, and then the cooldown is like 45 seconds. This could be used to sneak a mothership where you normally wouldn't expect it. And then recall. (ofc, while it's cloaked itself, it disables the auto-cloak of nearby units)
On August 25 2010 11:11 figq wrote: The main problem is that the games are still too "small", not just in number of bases and units, but the tech people can afford to go to. Solution: maps for progaming which stimulate larger macro games. At least it seems Blizzard backs up that direction, even though they'll keep the ladder as more average ground. The larger the games, the more usage of mothership there will be, especially when the field is wide, hard to move through, with many bases, and recall becomes invaluable to break good defenses.
I would love if mothership could cloak itself too, just for a limited time. Say, for 15 seconds, and then the cooldown is like 45 seconds. This could be used to sneak a mothership where you normally wouldn't expect it. And then recall. (ofc, while it's cloaked itself, it disables the auto-cloak of nearby units)
Late game being by FAR the most broken and ridiculously imbalanced thing as of now, I don't think making maps specifically geared towards late game & macro play is a very... clever solution :-|
I think the mothership is fine... I incorporate it into my late game fairly regularly, and it can swing the tide of close games quite effectively. By itself? No... but it isn't meant to.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.scarea.pl/units/parbiter_3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://origin.arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.media/Starcraft2_Protoss_Mothership-1.jpg)
and it's so slow, but i would hate to fight a good mothership :S just remove the thing and give toss something else
